Of course, these are the same folks who think God created fossils to "look" 50 million years old, even though the earthy is "really" only 5,000 years old, so their use of the analytical method is hardly something I'd have a lot of faith in.

The theory thought of the re-formation of a metal from its calx, that is, the earthy substance which remains after combustion, as the combination of two things to produce one, apparently homogeneous, substance.